Lucky

When I round the corner of the block where my motel is located, my practiced stance of head-down-body-hunched is fully in place, so I don’t see the brewing commotion until I almost trip over it.

“What the hell do you mean, I gotta leave?” A half-dressed guest is shouting at the manager.

“I don’t know how else to explain it to you, mister. Department of Health says I have to shut down immediately, so yeah, you and every guest here need to pack up your shit and leave. The inspector is coming back in an hour. With new locks.”

An icy rock drops into my gut. My feet freeze on the uneven parking lot tarmac as I absorb the words.

“Bullshit! I’ve been staying in this shit hole for years because my company is too cheap to put me up in a better motel when I come into town for business. I’m more than familiar with your complimentary rodent-per-room standards. So what’s changed? And since when does the DOH toss people out after hours?”

The manager shrugs. “Fuck if I know. Look, I’m just the manager, okay? I follow orders from on high, just like you do, so quit busting my balls.”

“Dammit! So what am I supposed to do?”

“Hell, I don’t know, find another place to stay and expense it?”

“Fuck you! I want a full refund, buddy, and I want to be compensated for the inconvenience. Or I ain’t leaving.”

The manager scratches his beer belly. “I can only refund seventy-five per cent of the remaining rate of your stay. You’ll need to take up any further claims with the parent company.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” The guest is growing redder in the face.

The manager, who doesn’t seem one little bit upset by the gathering crowd of disgruntled guests, shrugs. “Nope. Everything I’ve said is in the small print. Feel free to read it. Present your booking receipt when you check out and you’ll be given what you’re due.” He takes a step back and addresses the crowd. “That’ll be all, folks. Remember, the guys with locks will be here in an hour. If you ain’t outta here, you’ll be thrown out.”

“Yeah, try it and I’ll sue the pants off you,” One guest, an ageing woman with pink curlers in her hair, points an arthritic finger at the manager.

“I’m just doing my job, but go ahead, give it your best shot, lady,” he sneers.

A few other patrons voice their anger, but the manager shrugs it off. I wait till he’s heading back to his office before I sprint out from where I’ve been standing next to a banged up Corolla.

“Excuse me, sir?”

He stops and glances over his shoulder. “Yeah?”

“I don’t know if you remember me—”

“Sure, I remember you.” His gaze slides over me. I pull my backpack across my body. He sees the action and his expression sours. “What do you want?”

“I paid you two hundred dollars this morning. To cover my stay till the end of the week?”

“Yeah. And?”

My grip tightens on my strap and I plead with karma to give me a break. “I…obviously, since I can’t any longer, I need my money back.”

His gaze slides once more over my body, slower, sleazier this time. A smile I’ve seen more times than I care to count eases over his pudgy features. “Of course, sweetheart. Like I said, bring me your paperwork and I’ll sort you out.”

The ice expands in my gut. “You know I don’t have paperwork.” My voice shakes and I despise myself for it.

His face contorts in a show of false regret. “Ah, I’m sorry. No paperwork, no refund. Company policy.”

Anger dislodges the ice. I want to fly at him, claw that sick look of glee off his face, but I force myself to remain calm. For one thing, there are too many people around to witness it and possibly clock it on their camera phones if I do anything stupid. For another, I want no part of me touching the shit bag in front of me. My days of allowing men like him anywhere near me are over. Well…nearly over.

“Look, I’m asking you to show some…mercy.” The word sticks in my throat. The idea of having to beg this piece of shit to give me back money that’s rightfully mine burns a hole in my chest.

He steps closer, his gaze probing where I’ve crossed my hands over my breasts. “I can be merciful, sugar. Come with me to my office and I’ll show you what Papa Bear can do for you.” He smiles. His hand starts to lift toward me.

I step back, partly because the idea of him touching me fills me with severe loathing. But mostly because my knee is itching to make violent contact with the flabby Papa Bear parts between his legs. He accurately interprets the move.

“I guess you don’t want your refund, after all.” He waves a beefy hand in the direction of Union Turnpike subway where I’ve just walked from. “There’s a homeless shelter that way. Or you can blow some homeless guy into sharing his cardboard mansion with you.” He laughs and walks backward. “Either way, sweetheart, your situation is not my problem.”

He disappears around the corner into his office and tears surge into my eyes.

I don’t blink. Because, damn it, tears are of zero use to me right now. But, God, I want to succumb. I want to find the nearest dark corner and howl my eyes out. I want to beat myself for falling into a trap of my own making. With leaden feet, I retrace my steps to the motel room. My larger backpack sits where I left it this morning. At least the asshole didn’t break in and help himself to my stuff as well.

I sink onto the bed and stare at the ugly wall until my vision hazes. Fat tears slide down my cheeks, shamelessly defying my will. Defeat throbs in my veins and I drop back on the bed, setting free thick sobs that rip from my throat loud enough to wake the dead.

I cry until I’m certain there isn’t a drop of liquid left in my body. When I can bear to drag myself up, I make my way to the bathroom, blow my nose on coarse toilet paper and wash my face. My eyes collide with my reflection and I shudder in revulsion. My face is blotchy, the hair at my temples tear-soaked. Averting my gaze, I grab more paper and swipe at the damp spots. I throw the paper in the general vicinity of the trash. It misses. I don’t pick it up. It can be my tiny fuck you to the cosmos for the unending deluge of shit-dumping.

I return to the room and catch the sound of an electronic ping. My heart trips in paralyzing alarm before I remember my new phone. In the tumult of being suddenly made homeless, I’ve forgotten my appointment with Fionnella and her team back in the Midtown apartment.

It’s not for another two hours, but as I’ve found out in the last two days, Fionnella is nothing if not a stickler for punctuality. At midday today, I received a menu by text with a prompt to choose my preferred meal. The repeat of the burger and fries arrived within half an hour. I was in the middle of devouring it, when Sully found me and informed me of my new work status.

I nearly choked on a precious mouthful when he told me the two girls who contracted food poisoning last week had both quit, and that until they were replaced, I would be working in the executive restaurant. As if that wasn’t intimidating enough, he calmly announced that my first task would be to serve Quinn Blackwood’s lunch to him in his office.

A different emotion weaves through me as I pull out the phone.

What happened in Quinn’s office still feels a little surreal. After a short exchange while I laid out his lunch, the man barely spoke more than a few words. Sitting at his dining table, watching him eat, was a weird experience, for sure. But it wasn’t the sort of weird that made me recoil. It was a mind-bendingly fascinating weird. A make-your-heart-flip-flop-in-your-chest-with-each-move-he-made weird.

Watching him rendered me tongue-tied to the point where I was grateful he didn’t want to indulge in conversation. But tongue-tied didn’t mean paralyzed. My gaze was constantly drawn to him, although I didn’t gather the courage to meet his eyes again—twice was more than enough. Especially when both times the sensation of sliding at rocket speed toward a dark, but blissfully fatalistic end knocked my breath out of my body.

And when my pathetic attempts to resist staring worked, I could feel him watching me, those piercing, soulless eyes probing me.

My breath draws out now in a long, shuddering exhale as I recall those eyes.

God—

Heavy fists pound the door. I jump and release a husky croak. “What?”

“Time to vacate, lady!”

I shove the phone into my back pocket and thoughts of Quinn Blackwood to the back of my mind. I quickly re-braid my hair and stuff it back under the baseball cap, grab my stuff and open the door.

The manager smirks at me, flanked by two burly guys in dark clothing. They don’t have any distinguishing badges. In fact, they look more like street thugs or bouncers than DOH officials, but then what the fuck do I know? I sidle past them, hurry down the stairs and cross the parking lot, avoiding the gazes of other guests who’re vacating the premises.

I lower my head and strike out toward the subway.

I’m still terrified to go anywhere near the internet, which is why the first thing I did when Fionnella handed me the phone was to turn the Wi-Fi service off, regardless of her assurance that it was untraceable. If Clayton could track someone to Alaska, he could track me here. I know that. But that doesn’t mean I intend to make it easy for him.

As my bag grows heavy in my hand, the subject of my homelessness looms insurmountably large in my mind. I consider asking directions to the shelter but even I know you can’t book a place at a shelter in advance just to stash your luggage. And with my money almost gone, I don’t even have a hope of finding a place to stay tonight. The rat-infested piss hole I’m walking away from cost forty-five dollars a night for the privilege. My only choice is to take all my stuff with me to my appointment and figure out what to do afterward.

I arrive with more than fifty minutes to spare. I find a spot under a tree in a park a couple of blocks away from the penthouse and drop down onto the grass. In order not to attract too many stares, I pretend interest in my phone. Time drags and with it a sudden intensity of hunger.

My stomach knows it’s about to be fed and it has the temerity to grow impatient. When it growls and clenches one more time, I put away the phone and dig through my smaller backpack. I stashed an emergency chocolate bar in there a week ago and I almost moan in relief when my hand closes over it.

I’m on the run from Clayton Getty. I’ve been recently evicted from my exorbitant hellhole. I’m sitting in a park, waiting to present myself to a team of strangers in a fuck off apartment in order to begin a cycle of prepping to whore myself on film with a man I’ve never met, in return for a million dollars.

I figure I’ve earned an emergency chocolate bar.